Elementary Construction - Hans Arp 1916

Hans Arp, Elementary Construction, 1916

"An Anna Blume" or "To Eve Blossom" by Kurt Schwitters

"An Anna Blume" or "To Eve Blossom" 

Oh thou, beloved of my twenty-seven senses, I love thine! Thou thee
thee thine, I thine,
thou mine, we?
That (by the way) is beside the point!
Who art thou, uncounted woman, Thou art, art thou?
People say, thou werst,
Let them say, they don't know what they are talking about.
Thou wearest thine hat on thy feet, and wanderest on thine hands,
On thine hands thou wanderest
Hallo, thy red dress, sawn into white folds,
Red I love Eve Blossom, red I love thine,
Thou thee thee thine, I thine, thou mine, we?
That (by the way) belongs to the cold glow!
Eve Blossom, red Eve Blossom what do people say?
PRIZE QUESTION: 1. Eve Blossom is red,
2. Eve Blossom has wheels
3. what colour are the wheels?
Blue is the colour of your yellow hair
Red is the whirl of your green wheels,
Thou simple maiden in everyday dress,
Thou small green animal,
I love thine!
Thou thee thee thine, I thine, thou mine, we?
That (by the way) belongs to the glowing brazier!
Eve Blossom,eve,
E - V - E,
E easy, V victory, E easy,
I trickle your name.
Your name drops like soft tallow.
Do you know it, Eve?
Do you already know it?
One can also read you from the back
And you, you most glorious of all,
You are from the back as from the front,
E-V-E.
Easy victory.
Tallow trickles to stroke over my back
Eve Blossom,
Thou drippy animal,
I
Love
Thine!
I love you!!!!

Kurt Schwitters 1919

This poem catapulted Schwitters into the public eye but some in the Dada movement found it too sentimental:

"Dada rejects emphatically and as a matter of principle works like the famous 'Anna Blume' of Kurt Schwitters."  - Richard Huelsenbeck

Scwitters said:

"Elements of poetry are letters, syllables, words, sentences. Poetry arises from the interaction of those elements. Meaning is important only if it employed as one such factor. I play off sense against nonsense. I prefer nonsense, but that is a purely personal matter." Kurt Schwitters, 1920

Inside Club Dada - The International Dada Fair - Berlin 1920

From left to right: Hausmann, Hanna Höch, Dr Burchard, Baader, W. Hetzfelde, the wife, Dr. Oz, George Grosz, John Heartfield at The International Dada Fair of 1920.

The central symbol here is perhaps the effigy of a German soldier with a pig's head hanging from the ceiling.

Reproduction opposite page 128, from the book Dada Almanach; im Auftrag des Zentralamts der Deutschen Dada-Bewegung, by Richard Huelsenbeck

DADA BAR - Sheffield

So it's 2014, almost 100 years of DADA now fully assimilated into modern culture but still with the capacity to inspire from under to overground.

Here's the Dada Bar in Sheffield, the City that also brought us the Dada inspired electronic music giants Cabaret Voltaire who are to play their first gig in twenty years in August 2014 at Berlin Atonal

It's on Trippet Lane and run by Thornbridge Brewery - go get a beer!

Dada Haiku - Paul Eluard

Le vent

Hésitant

Roué une cigarrette d'air

the wind

hesitating

rolls a cigarette of air

Paul Eluard

WITH THIS RING - New Parks Poetry Machine 2014

green tea beats big fight club's ex-girlfriend 

old flame makes me feel like a husband 

and then puts probes in their brains

with this ring our boys they cut holes through their skulls

what do perfect way to mend a replay?

perfect broken hart horror

so good.. son charged in car boot

Paul Conneally & The New Parks Poetry Machine Crew 2014

With and for Soft Touch Arts and New Parks Library, Leicester

Shinkichi Takahasi - Japanese Dadaist - DADA 1924

DADA - Shinkichi Takahasi (1924).

Shinkichi Takahasi, the great pioneer of Japanese DADA, the only real Zen poet of note in modern Japanese literature. Here is one of his Dadaist poems:

dish dish dish dish dish dish dish dish dish dish dish dish dish dish dish dish dish dish dish dish dish dish

ennui

passions crawling like a spider on the brow Don't wipe dishes

with the rice colored apron, a woman with black nostrils

Humor is becoming sooty there too. Dissolve life in the water.

On a cooled stew pot weariness floats.

Smash dishes.

Smash dishes and then there will come out the echo of ennui.